The Michael Knowles Show - Would YOU Rather ｜ with Amala Ekpunobi

00:00:00.000 You know, we bring a lot of old friends on the show. We have them over. We play games.

00:00:04.980 We smoke cigars. We drink. We drink and smoke cigars while we play games. But sometimes we

00:00:11.060 get the distinct privilege of meeting somebody new. And there is a new voice out there. She is

00:00:16.420 taking PragerU by storm. That would be Amala Epanobi. Amala is some, I've only just met Amala

00:00:23.960 right now. I don't know anything really about her other than what I've seen online. So I'm going to

00:00:30.380 grill her and figure out who really is Amala Epanobi. Amala, thank you for being here.

00:00:35.440 Thanks for having me, Michael. I'm ready to get grilled.

00:00:37.420 Are you ready? Get ready for the hot seat, okay? The producers have put together a list of questions

00:00:43.660 that are supposed to tell us everything that we need to know about you.

00:00:48.180 Okay, I'm ready.

00:00:49.020 First question. Would you rather smoke a cigar with Dennis Prager or drink a beer with Will

00:00:55.500 Witt?

00:00:56.080 Oh, you're starting right out the gate with very, very easy questions here, Michael.

00:01:00.300 That's easy.

00:01:01.120 Yes, it is.

00:01:01.840 How's that easy?

00:01:02.400 Because I love Dennis more than anything. So I'm going to go smoking the cigar with Dennis

00:01:07.720 Prager.

00:01:08.300 You know, the other great thing about smoking a cigar with Dennis is Dennis doesn't like Cubans, 1.00

00:01:13.300 but people give him Cubans. So when you go and smoke a cigar with him, he'll have these

00:01:18.420 gorgeous cigars. I mean, like $100 cigars that he's going to throw them in the trash. So

00:01:22.560 you get to pick the scraps from Dennis's table are really, really wonderful.

00:01:26.100 So every Cuban that you give to Dennis Prager goes to Michael Knowles.

00:01:28.720 Goes straight to me. All of them should, and a fair number of them have. Next up, would you

00:01:35.780 rather debate Candace Owens or Ben Shapiro?

00:01:39.760 Oh, no. Okay, now we have a harder question. Let's see. I'm going to go, honestly, there's

00:01:48.520 no right answer to this. I think I may fail either way, but I'm going to go with Candace

00:01:53.080 Owens. 0.95

00:01:53.700 You would rather debate Candace?

00:01:55.280 Yeah. 1.00

00:01:55.660 You're crazy. 1.00

00:01:56.020 I'd like to feel the heat. I'm crazy. 1.00

00:01:57.840 Yes. 0.76

00:01:58.340 This hearing, in my opinion, is a farce.

00:02:00.860 Yes. Look, they're obviously both very intelligent, very serious, sharp people. However, while Ben is

00:02:08.360 just a fact machine, right, it would be definitely a formidable experience.

00:02:12.520 Right.

00:02:13.580 Candace is a force of nature.

00:02:16.140 Yeah.

00:02:16.500 She is like a military-grade cannon, and I never want that thing aimed in my direction. 1.00

00:02:22.000 Not once.

00:02:22.620 She'll bring the claws out on me. 1.00

00:02:24.040 Yes. Maybe you're more courageous than I am. Next question.

00:02:29.720 Next question.

00:02:30.700 Since there is a good chance that this actually may happen, would you prefer to be banned from

00:02:36.700 YouTube or TikTok?

00:02:39.260 Ooh. Well, considering I've already been banned off of TikTok probably three or four times now.

00:02:44.780 Have you?

00:02:45.360 Yeah.

00:02:45.700 Are you back on at the moment?

00:02:47.160 I'm back on at the moment, but PragerU is permanently banned off of TikTok, so I think

00:02:52.320 I'll take another round with TikTok. I'm so used to it right now.

00:02:55.060 Yeah, that's fair. I would like to be banned off of TikTok because it's much more conducive

00:02:59.620 to virtue.

00:03:00.620 Right.

00:03:00.760 You know, I only tried TikTok, truly. My wife and I sat next to each other. We tried

00:03:04.840 it for about 20 minutes, and it's like crack for your brain. I thought Instagram was bad,

00:03:10.780 but you're just, first of all, some of the stuff is not fit for the queen, but then you're

00:03:14.680 scrolling through it, and it's all video, so you just can't look away. It's so immersive.

00:03:19.540 It is the most atrocious piece of social media that I think has ever been created,

00:03:23.200 so I don't mind being banned on it.

00:03:24.980 And where can people find you on TikTok?

00:03:26.500 People can find me at Amalepinobi on TikTok if it stays there. I mean, right after I say

00:03:31.660 this, I could be gone.

00:03:32.780 That's true. You could be. Okay. Speaking of debates, this actually does get a little

00:03:39.060 bit more toward political philosophy.

00:03:40.560 Okay. Sure.

00:03:41.840 Would you rather have a debate with a BLM leader on racial justice or with a DSA member, say,

00:03:54.380 on socialism?

00:03:56.620 Oof. Both of them would be, I think, very, very easy. I think I could hit both of those

00:04:01.460 out of the park. I'm going to go BLM activist because I used to be one, so I think I can meet

00:04:07.900 them head to head. Have you seen that interview with Larry Elder and Dave Rubin where Larry Elder

00:04:12.140 looks him dead in the face and he goes, give me an example of systemic racism, and Dave just

00:04:16.460 can't do it? That's who I would be.

00:04:18.540 It's brutal because, yeah, I mean, in that sort of a circumstance, if you've got a lot

00:04:22.780 going in, I mean, you were a, I know you were a leftist activist, but you're saying you were

00:04:26.440 kind of like more BLM.

00:04:28.000 I was definitely associated with BLM, so I did virtually every single leftist campaign

00:04:32.640 that you can think of out in Florida I was a part of, so BLM was one of those.

00:04:36.460 Wow. Wow. Because I agree with you. I mean, I think socialism's evil. It's been, I mean,

00:04:42.480 it's the second oldest faith of mankind is communism. That's what Whitaker Chambers told us.

00:04:47.260 Goes back to the Garden of Eden when the serpent said, ye shall be as gods. Many popes have

00:04:52.480 written about how just evil and rotten and terrible socialism is. I know now people seem

00:04:57.360 to think that Jesus was a socialist or something, but it's just preposterous to say that. You

00:05:04.820 know, I think it was John XXIII who said no Christian can subscribe even to moderate socialism.

00:05:09.820 So it's like, I get it. It's really evil, but I also think it's kind of beating a dead

00:05:13.960 horse at this point to talk about socialism. That's not the big issue. People aren't out

00:05:17.860 in the streets for, you know, socialist summer burning down cities. BLM is burning down cities. 0.61

00:05:23.700 Right. And the whole CRT thing in schools, I mean, it just keeps going race, race, race. So that's

00:05:28.280 where I would, that's where I would fight the battle.

00:05:30.300 Yeah, I think you're right. I think no one's really teaching Marx in schools or any of the sort

00:05:36.060 of, or Lenin or, or Engels or Trotsky, but people are studying Kimberly Crenshaw. They're

00:05:42.420 studying all the, all these really radical racialized Marxists. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So

00:05:48.600 it is, it is Marxism in a way. So maybe socialism is the battle, but it's like, ugh.

00:05:52.380 But it's in this cultural front. This is actually the subject of my upcoming book, Speechless,

00:05:55.580 by the way, Controlling Words, Controlling Minds, which is available for order right now for

00:06:00.060 actual order. Just a little brief plug in there. Thank you, Amala, for setting me up for that.

00:06:03.500 It was just so smooth. It was, thank you. I didn't even have to set you up.

00:06:07.360 Okay. I think you're right. I totally agree with you on that point.

00:06:11.120 Would you rather have Joe Biden finish out his term as president or have Kamala Harris take 1.00

00:06:17.880 office before 2024? Oh, goodness. That's a tough one too. I can't even

00:06:22.920 wait for Joe Biden to finish a sentence at this point. Yeah, none of us can.

00:06:27.420 I'm thinking I've got to go with the lesser of two evils. I think Kamala is a very, very dark horse

00:06:33.040 in the running here. I'm going to go with Joe Biden. Let him finish the term. Hopefully he makes

00:06:36.680 it. Yeah, I agree. She's so grating. It's not, it's obviously the whole thing is just being

00:06:42.740 controlled by the liberal establishment. Both of those people are empty suits. Right. But between

00:06:47.600 Joe Biden's simpering, doddering inanity and Kamala Harris's witchy cackle, I would rather 1.00

00:06:56.660 grit my teeth and bear the Biden mumbling than that. It's just unbearable.

00:07:03.560 It is. She's, oh gosh. Oh, she's what a woman. What a woman. What a woman. Speaking of these sorts

00:07:09.600 of left-wing women, would you rather be stuck in an elevator with AOC or Nancy Pelosi? 1.00

00:07:16.560 Ooh. Okay. I'm going to go with Nancy Pelosi. At least she's got a little bit of a mature 0.98

00:07:26.000 aura to her. AOC, I think once I got out of the elevator, she would accuse me of attacking 0.97

00:07:30.220 her or something. So I got to keep my wits about me and I don't want a lawsuit on my hands. So

00:07:34.620 I'm going to go with Nancy Pelosi. I agree. I think actually you could have a conversation

00:07:39.800 with Pelosi. Right. Whereas with AOC, she's just always making these really disingenuous,

00:07:47.820 bad faith. Everything's on social media. Right. Yeah. And Pelosi also, when she kind of loses her

00:07:53.380 marbles every so often, she goes into that really pleasant, do you remember she was on a morning

00:07:57.300 show? She said, good morning. Sunday morning. Good morning. Sunday morning. I remember. It was just

00:08:04.420 an answer to a question no one asked. Oh, the abracadabra thing that she did. You remember

00:08:09.780 that? Yes. Yeah. She's a strange, at least it would be just a strange, interesting experience

00:08:14.020 with her. Yes. I agree. Okay. So, so we're like totally simpatico. Yeah. We're great. Okay.

00:08:20.220 Okay. I have to ask this question. Okay. Yeah. I remember when I was in college, you would hear

00:08:25.420 this all the time. You'd hear, Hey, you know, I'm a conservative, but I'm, I'm a fiscal conservative,

00:08:30.700 social liberal. I always thought it was always the way to say like, Hey, I'm a conservative,

00:08:34.460 but I still want to get invited to parties. So I'm a conservative, but I still want girls to talk to me. 0.98

00:08:39.200 Right. So would you say the kind, there are so many different types of conservatives. There's

00:08:43.680 the libertarians, the neoconservatives, the traditional conservatives, the populists,

00:08:47.960 the this, the that, and the other thing, right? Right. But a hundred conservatives in a room,

00:08:51.180 you get a hundred different answers. Right. Are you socially liberal, socially moderate,

00:08:58.900 even let's say socially libertarian, get off my lawn, or are you one of those dread,

00:09:04.860 evil, social conservatives? I'm a social conservative. My girl. All right. Love it.

00:09:12.480 Yeah. No, I don't, I don't feel like I need to whisper that at all. I'm a social conservative all

00:09:15.940 the way. Right. Because sometimes you'll hear this, you'll hear people say, look, you know,

00:09:20.140 I'm, I'm conservative in this way, but I actually don't think the government should have anything to

00:09:24.640 say about any, any cultural issue whatsoever. And I just, let's just cut taxes and that's it. And I

00:09:30.360 think the GOP has been just cutting taxes for 30 years. What has it gotten us? Right. The country's

00:09:36.140 in rubble. The real problem in our country right now is, is a cultural problem, especially when it 0.55

00:09:41.080 comes to young people. So that's why I'm here. That's why I'm at PragerU. That's why I'm fighting

00:09:44.360 the fight. Yeah. Because that's what happened to me. I was a young person. I was indoctrinated by the

00:09:48.080 left. I met a conservative who was out there trying to talk to young people. And I found all these

00:09:52.460 conservative videos, videos like yours, and that's what woke me up. So if I can do that for some crazy

00:09:56.320 young people, that's what I'll do. Now, I love you saying this because so often I think

00:10:01.960 boomers believe that young conservatives believe that we shouldn't hear anything about society or

00:10:11.700 culture. Right. Basically when, when I hear, sometimes I'll go to conservative fundraisers

00:10:17.220 or things like that and I'll hear, you know, the way to reach the youths is to stop talking about

00:10:21.100 abortion or marriage or family or society or any of these. And I think you've never talked to

00:10:26.300 a teenager or a 20 something in your life because every young person who's a young conservative

00:10:31.620 that I know is significantly more socially conservative than even the millennials, but

00:10:37.760 certainly Gen X or the boomers. Right. The hill that I die on in terms of conservatism is 0.96

00:10:42.320 definitely not a fiscal one. It's a social one because the culture is really the problem. And when

00:10:46.300 you meet young people, whether they're on the left or the right, what they're talking about is

00:10:49.360 social issues. Yeah. That's the real, the real war here. A hundred percent. This is Amala. This is

00:10:54.400 good. This is good stuff. Thank you. So, oh, and this is a really tough one. Okay. Okay. I'll tell

00:11:00.200 you what, I'm going to start with a less tough one. Then I'm going to bring you to the really tough

00:11:02.740 one. Sure. Okay. I'm ready. So Joe Biden, he's not looking good. He's looking a little slow.

00:11:09.720 No, he is. If he does not run for reelection in 2024, who would you rather see be the Democrat

00:11:18.820 nominee? Now I know Kamala is kind of the anointed one, but assuming you can get any Democrat you want,

00:11:23.820 who would you rather see? I want to see, I think I would want to see the craziest of the crazy just 0.68

00:11:29.040 because it's got to get so ridiculous that, that nobody can, can possibly vote for them. Maybe like 0.81

00:11:34.880 a, an AOC or an Ilhan just to show them the true craziness of the left. And anybody who's on the

00:11:41.140 right that goes up against that, I think will win in a landslide. That's, you know, it's a dangerous

00:11:44.940 game. It is. It is. A game of a young person. It is. Gamble it all. Red 23. Let's. You got to

00:11:51.600 see a crazy one, Michael. All in. Yep. AOC, I think will just be old enough in 2024. Right. Should

00:11:58.060 be exactly 35. Right. Right. Lady never tells, but yeah, I think that's true. Okay. So you're in, 1.00

00:12:03.460 you're in for AOC. Fair enough. Fair argument. Now the really tough question. Ron DeSantis is doing

00:12:09.940 great stuff in Florida. He is. He's doing, he's a very good governor. Yep. He, he appears to want

00:12:14.620 to run for president. Right. He's kind of taking on some Trump-like attributes. Sure. In the demeanor,

00:12:20.840 in the speech. And he's, I think he's running for the Trump lane of the Republican presidential

00:12:28.240 primary. So let's say that DeSantis wants to run and Trump wants to run. Who do you want to run?

00:12:37.680 Ooh, I think I'm going to put my name in the hat for the young buck. I think I'm going to go for

00:12:42.600 DeSantis. Okay. He's a governor that I've seen. Obviously I'm from Florida. I moved from Florida

00:12:46.720 to LA for PragerU, but he's really been running game in Florida. He's been actually making changes.

00:12:51.660 Look what he's done with big tech. Look what he's done with the lockdowns. Look what he's done just

00:12:55.960 all over the state. He's actually making changes. So I would love to see somebody young,

00:13:01.060 fresh and conservative hop in the ring. Fair enough. And you know, one hopes that if both those guys want to run,

00:13:07.080 I hope they, they work it out and figure, you know, the worst thing I think, because part of

00:13:13.040 me thinks, man, I'd love to see Trump run again. Part of me thinks there are a lot of, I mean,

00:13:17.600 forget even just DeSantis, there are a lot of really good candidates on the Republican side.

00:13:21.400 I just don't want them to kill each other. Exactly. You know, that would be, that would be

00:13:25.460 unfortunate. Yeah. Don't go, don't go Dutch on it. Just, just pick one and let them run. Yes, 1.00

00:13:29.200 that's right. Would you, if you, okay, two questions. I'm going to start off with one.

00:13:36.440 Okay. Do you think that the universities can be reformed or do you think they need to be

00:13:41.580 basically demolished? Oh, okay. This is, this is a very, very tough one.

00:13:47.300 You're a tenured influencer at Prager University. I know. You have institutional backing.

00:13:51.080 I've been there a whole of three months, so I'm very far back to this one. Let's see. I think,

00:13:58.060 I don't know. I think we need to reform the education system, although I think it's going

00:14:02.800 to be very, very difficult. So it might need some destruction here. I don't see the use in really

00:14:08.420 attending a college or a university unless you absolutely have to at this point, which is

00:14:11.940 leaning me towards, it just needs to be destroyed. Yeah. Yeah. I tell, you know, I'm,

00:14:15.800 I'm always a great defender of reforming things over the knocking them down. And I'm a

00:14:20.860 great defender of the universities. Right. And yet, even the late Roger Scruton, one of

00:14:26.140 the great conservative philosophers of the last few decades, he said in his very posh

00:14:31.400 British way, he said, I think they basically have to be destroyed. I think they must. 0.98

00:14:35.620 It's very, very difficult if the thing is totally rotted out from the core. I mean, I could name

00:14:40.160 fewer than half a dozen universities in America or colleges where you could still get a good

00:14:45.840 education, really, that's not, not infected by this stuff. So, okay, fair enough.

00:14:50.860 So today, well, actually, okay, I want to ask you this one too. Okay. If you could only abolish

00:14:56.580 one of these institutions, you've got your gavel, you will abolish it.

00:15:01.780 Gotcha. Would you abolish the universities or would you abolish social media?

00:15:05.460 Okay. I'm going to pull out the gavel and I'm going to say, boom, social media. I think not

00:15:15.160 everybody attends a university, but every single person is on social media and they're truly

00:15:20.380 controlled by these super far left big tech overlords. So if I'm going to choose one, I think

00:15:24.780 I'm going to choose the one with the most impact and that would be social media.

00:15:27.180 But the problem, look, I'm with you. I understand this. However.

00:15:30.600 However. However.

00:15:31.840 You're on social media. I am on social media. We know about you because of,

00:15:35.220 we know about me because of social media. That is true. You make a fair point.

00:15:38.820 So now are we, if we get rid of the social media, then it's what? Then it's just NBC again.

00:15:43.160 So that's no good. But if we empower the social media, then it's Jack Dorsey,

00:15:46.740 hipster Rasputin. That's no good.

00:15:48.800 Do I get to change my gavel, Michael?

00:15:50.480 You may be, but you're in between a rock and a hard place.

00:15:54.000 I am in between a rock and a hard place. They both have significant influence on our society.

00:15:58.020 Yes.

00:15:58.640 We are, we are churning out radicals on both sides.

00:16:01.040 You can knock, you can abolish them both. It's fine.

00:16:03.000 No, no, no.

00:16:03.940 Double gavel?

00:16:05.220 It is too much. Conservatives know there are limits to things. All right. We'll put a pin in that one.

00:16:09.360 Okay. 0.87

00:16:10.600 Today, would it be better for black Americans to abolish affirmative action or to expand affirmative 0.99

00:16:19.600 action? 0.99

00:16:20.780 Abolish. 100%.

00:16:22.220 There's no...

00:16:24.020 I want to ask you this on your answer because I, I mean, I think the affirmative action stuff

00:16:28.140 is terrible and I really don't like it. However, I am open to the idea that history has an effect

00:16:37.100 on current society and history. You know, we're conservatives. We believe in the past and the

00:16:40.940 future and the way that one generation affects another.

00:16:44.380 Right.

00:16:44.660 Right. So when people talk about the legacy of slavery, I think it's overwrought. I think

00:16:48.980 it's kind of silly. I think there are a lot of other factors. However, there is, I think, 0.57

00:16:53.800 something to it. There is something to, you know, the sins of the father coming onto the

00:16:59.020 son and all these. So you'd get rid of affirmative action. Is there, is there any argument for it 0.99

00:17:06.100 anymore?

00:17:06.400 I, not that I can see now. And I think my, my comeback to that is, is there any right privilege

00:17:13.440 thing that I have as a, as a black person that you have? Is there any right or privilege that

00:17:19.860 you have that I don't? And I don't think that's true anymore. I don't think I'm held back by the

00:17:24.620 current society of today. And while there may be small remnants of, you know, the past of the

00:17:30.380 transgressions of America, I don't think they're as significant as the left tells us they are.

00:17:34.760 Yeah. And if you achieve something through affirmative action, how much should you actually

00:17:39.160 achieve? I think it's stripping people of, of true accomplishment, of true success, if you got

00:17:43.120 it because of your race.

00:17:44.400 Yeah. No, I, I think that's true. I remember Clarence Thomas wrote about this in his memoir.

00:17:48.520 He couldn't get it. He went to Yale law school. This guy's one of the smartest lawyers in the country

00:17:51.800 and he, he couldn't get a job because they all thought he was an affirmative action case.

00:17:56.460 Right.

00:17:56.740 And he said, then I learned the value of a, of a Yale degree in this affirmative action society.

00:18:02.380 Sure.

00:18:02.800 It was a bupkis. It was worth nothing. 1.00

00:18:04.300 Exactly.

00:18:05.380 Yeah. No, that's a good point. And it's, it's also just everyone suffers. Everyone does. And

00:18:11.500 everyone's got some privileges and everyone suffers. And it's just not conducive to flourishing

00:18:16.360 to whine and complain and try to ask for special entitlements.

00:18:21.400 Right.

00:18:21.820 Because of suffering. It just won't, it won't make you strong. It won't, you know, you won't thrive.

00:18:26.600 Okay. Last question.

00:18:28.080 Last question.

00:18:28.760 If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self. Now you are, a lady never tells 1.00

00:18:37.180 her age. You are fairly young at the moment. So I don't know, your younger self would be

00:18:41.320 even younger.

00:18:42.060 Sure.

00:18:42.400 But you went through this leftist period, this BLM period. What would you tell yourself? 0.90

00:18:47.960 I would tell myself, and I answered this question earlier. I would tell myself that you are nobody's

00:18:52.860 victim. And the people who are trying to convince you that you are a victim are the ones that are

00:18:56.580 truly out to get you in or truly against you. And you, you won't get anywhere if you listen to

00:19:00.740 those people. And I listened to them for a very, very long time. And then I found somebody who told

00:19:05.900 me, no, you are not. And you can be successful and you are successful. And that completely changed my

00:19:10.660 mindset. It changed my worldview. And now here I am. So I think I'm a testament to don't let anybody

00:19:15.040 tell you you're a victim.

00:19:16.280 Yeah, I think that's terrific. And you, you've had many difficulties in your life. Okay. And we

00:19:22.560 don't need to get into all, I want to talk about the most specific one, the silent K. People, I know, 1.00

00:19:28.020 I can really identify with this. People, I'm sure they pronounce it Ek Penobi.

00:19:32.200 Yes, they do, Michael.

00:19:33.640 Michael Canoles. They think it was an anglicization of cannoli at Ellis Island, but it wasn't. It's not.

00:19:40.560 We both share the same struggle, you know, and we're, we're different races. We're different

00:19:44.000 genders. We share the same struggle. That's silent K. 1.00

00:19:46.260 You're assuming, you're assuming a lot of things about my sex and my race, but that's for another

00:19:50.240 episode. Amala Epanobi, thank you for being here. Where can people find you?

00:19:55.180 They can find me anywhere on social media. And if you guys want to follow PragerU,

00:19:58.620 that's where I'm making content. So you can find me anywhere. I'm all over the place.

00:20:01.820 All over the place. And you can find Amala on TikTok for now. You cannot find me on TikTok. Okay.

00:20:06.800 Nobody wants me on TikTok. Amala, thank you so much for being here.

00:20:09.860 Thank you for having me. And I do want you on TikTok.

00:20:11.680 TikTok. ASAP.

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The Michael Knowles Show - July 03, 2021

Would YOU Rather ｜ with Amala Ekpunobi

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